


This is Our Time

by Krasimer



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Mentions of Character Death, Not A Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 03:18:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben Braeden is a hunter. Along the way, he meets a few people, and suddenly the world seems just a bit more threatening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is Our Time

It's a cold, miserable, rainy day when Ben walks into the small bar and restaurant on the edge of nowhere and in the middle of empty. Truly, the place is well kept, tidy, and a decent place to get a bite to eat in the middle of the day, but the question that runs through his mind is 'Why is it out here?'.

It's in the middle of nowhere.

Almost literally.

The girl running around behind the bar is pretty enough, all blonde hair and large green eyes. When he sits down, she holds out a hand, hastily wiped off, and calls herself Claire. She grins when he hesitantly takes it and shakes slowly, then looks around.  
If he had to guess, he would say that the rest of the people in the bar were hunters. Like him. He'd just come off of a hunt, having taken out a small nest of vampires. 

It had been easy. Scarily so, like his hands just knew what to do without him thinking about it. Like he had been trained, but he knew for a fact that no one had ever shown up and taught him how to wield a shotgun, or a large knife like that.

"You've got a little blood." Claire laughed at the dumbstruck look on his face. "Just there-" she reached out and brushed her fingers over his collar. "-There. You should get it cleaned up before going back out into the world of normal people. Hunters aren't the type to be understood by the rest of the world."

"Thank you." he finds himself saying, not paying much attention to her anymore as he spots a man down the bar from him. He has brown hair, tinted almost gold. There's a spark of intelligence in his eyes, and the way he's sipping at his beer rather than chugging it tells Ben that he has had a HELL of a day. Too bad of one to really care that it should have been finished a while back. 

On a whim, he stands and makes his way over to the man. "Hey."

Brown eyes flicker towards him, then blink slowly, a clear hello, even if the man doesn't speak.

"I'm Ben."

The man nods, then sets his beer down, clears throat and rolls his shoulder, like he was trying to stretch it back into place.

"I'm Lucas."

His voice is more of a whisper than Ben expected, especially for someone so broad in the shoulders and chest and of that height.  
Ben smiles, rubbing at his wrist. One of the vampires had grabbed it and yanked him around, he was fairly certain he had dislocated it. "What did you hunt down?"

Lucas gave him a small smile, just barely there. "Wendigo."

"If your shoulder is hurting, you should probably try a hot water bottle. Always works for that kind of thing."

"You?" Lucas is nodding, almost serene in his soft voice and shy manner. Ben still can't get a fix on his age.

Ben grins, motions at Claire for another beer. "Vampires."

"A nest?"

He nods, still rubbing at his wrist. He doesn't really have time to argue as Lucas takes it, gently, and tugs at it softly, feeling around with his thumb as he goes. After a few seconds, he yanks once, hard, towards himself. Ben would have sworn and fallen off his seat, except that Lucas had braced a foot against him, preventing it.

The other man lets go, turning back to his beer.

"Better?"

He nods, and Lucas pulls out his wallet, drops some money on the bar, and leaves.

It's a month before Ben sees him again.

 

XXLucasBurrXBenBraedenXX

 

It takes a little while, but Ben manages to take down a ghoul, all on his own.

But there were two, and as he's looking for the second one he realizes that there's another man in front of him. He has a ponytail, hair almost down to his shoulder blades, and his shirt is torn in a few places, but he seems to be doing okay.

It's a second later that Ben realizes the man is Lucas, and the thing he's holding is the other ghoul. He struggles for a gun that is sticking out of his belt, and he almost shoves the barrel into the ghoul's forehead. There's the distinctive sound of cracking bone and then the ghoul's head explodes out backwards, bits and gobbets flying. Ben winces, breathing hard and rubbing at his shoulder.

Lucas lets the body drop to the ground, then looks up at Ben. "Hello."

It's so ridiculous that Ben can't help but laugh, a full-bellied laugh that has him gripping at his sides, short of breath, almost howling. When he chances looking up at the other man, Lucas's face is full of confusion.   
It sends him reeling back into breathlessness.

When he finally calms down, he straightens himself, giving an apologetic smile. Lucas gives him another one of those barely there smiles.

"How did you...?"

Lucas shrugs, eyes sparkling with silent laughter. "Claire told me that Garth told her that you had gone off on a ghoul hunt. Garth also apparently said that you were operating off the assumption that there was only one. They told me the basic location and I followed you to here. Saw you take one down on your own though."

Ben grins, face flushing. "I've always been a little reckless I guess...But hey, if I had run away when I figured out that there was more than one, I would have been followed and that might have been the end of me."

"A tragic thing, for sure." 

Ben's smile fell a few notches, and he could have sworn that he heard actual sadness in the other man's voice. 

He shrugged. "I'm still looking for the one who taught me all of this. I don't remember things. There's a couple of dents in my memory." he forced himself to chuckle, suddenly nauseous. "Couple of holes, too."

"I'm looking for the guys who saved my life when I was younger." Lucas sighed, then pulled Ben away from the wall he had been leaning against. "C'mon, lets get you all patched up."  
Wincing in pain, Ben let him. 

It felt nice to have someone helping him like that.

 

XXLucasBurrXBenBraedenXX

 

When he returned to Claire's bar, later that month, he instantly realized that someone was missing. Lucas wasn't at his normal spot.

When he asked Claire about it, she frowned. 

"Haven't seen or heard from him in about a week and a half. Garth hasn't got any news either."

One of the other hunters, a girl named Tyler, wandered over and saluted half-heartedly. She had blood dripping from a cut over her eye, and her left arm was hanging slack at her side. When she walked, she had a limp.

"Claire-bear, need some help here." she muttered, right hand reaching up to grab her left shoulder. "Hunt went bad."

Claire opened the door to let Tyler behind the bar, ushering her into the back room. "Ben, try looking around, don't know what else I can tell you." 

Tyler gave her a look, then turned to Ben. "Who are you looking for?"

"Lucas Barr." Ben frowned. "Haven't seen him in a while, neither has Claire."

Frowning, Tyler thought for a moment, swaying slightly on her feet. There was blood coating her hair thoroughly, on the back of her head. "I think I heard that he was on a hunt down near..." she screwed up her face in thought, then closed her eyes tightly, shuddering in pain. "Kansas? I don't know..."

At that point, Claire scooped her up and carried her away into the back room.

 

XXLucasBurrXBenBraedenXX

 

After another day and a half of looking, including the drive down to Kansas, Ben managed to find Lucas. The other man was bloodied and bruised, eyes closed, and hair cut short.

He was also checked into a hospital. The doctors were saying that he had come in, dragging his leg and that he had had a hole in his side, like something had tried to rip him open. He had stumbled into the E.R. and they had barely managed to get him into a stable state after he nearly died.

When they asked who he was to Lucas though, he couldn't think of any answer other than:

"We're together."

He winced when the doctor's eyebrows rose, almost to his hairline, then he smiled and nodded, letting him into the room and telling him to ask for anything he needed.

Lucas was still unconscious.

Feeling a bit awkward, Ben took his hand, frowning when he felt how rough the skin was.

"What the Hell were you hunting..."

Turning to the door, Ben raised an eyebrow. "Who are you?"

The man he saw standing in front of him was brown haired, with green eyes. He was wearing flannel, jeans and boots, the standard clothing of a hunter.

He also looked, when he saw Ben's face, like someone had slapped him. He cleared his throat, then looked at Lucas. "I'm Dean."

"Dean, you're not going to believe what seems to be happening in this town. People kee-Holy shit."  
Another man walked up behind Dean, stopping dead when he caught sight of Ben.

"Sam-"

"Is that...?"

Ben sighed. "Alright, either one of you tell me why you recognize me, or I have the doctors kick you out."

The taller of the two, Sam, stared at Ben for a moment longer before clearing his throat. "Dean, you wanna tell him?"

"No." Dean sounded angry, but then closed his eyes, rubbing at his forehead. "Your name is Ben Braeden, right? Son of Lisa Braeden?"

"Yeah. How the fuc-"

"I'm Dean Winchester. I used to know your mom." He looked a bit ashamed. "I..."

Closing his eyes, Ben grimaced. "Oh god, you're someone who actually gets to make 'yo mamma' jokes, aren't you?"

Dean grinned awkwardly, then turned when someone in the room laughed quietly. 

Ben turned back to Lucas, noticing that the other man was awake now, gripping his hand tightly. 

"First thing I wake up to is something about awful humor. Good to know I wasn't under for that long..."

Lucas looked at Dean, then at Sam. "You two. I remember you." he smiled, then winced when he tried to sit up and couldn't.   
"You're the Winchesters. You saved my mom's life and mine."

"We save a lot of people." Sam shrugged, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Not that big of a thing, it's the right thing to do."

"You saved my mom from the ghost of the kid that my Grandfather killed by drowning him in the lake." Lucas turned to Dean, eyes focused completely on him now. "I drew the red bicycles that helped you figure it out. You told me about your family. I was actually in the lake by the time you saved my life."

Dean's grin turned genuine now, eyes brightening. "Lucas Barr. The kid who didn't talk."

"Your mom nearly drowned in her bathtub." Sam added, looking at him carefully now. "You became a hunter."

Lucas smiled, gesturing for them to come in further. Only after they had sat down, chairs pulled up close and next to Ben, did Lucas explain.

"After I nearly died, I started taking self defense lessons. I started learning how to use weapons, and guns, and my mom started taking classes too. She's now the new sheriff, back home. Replaced her dad. Makes deals with local hunters, lets them hide away from police if they're on a case." he shrugged. "One experience can change a person. Sometimes the change is for the better.   
After all that happened, we decided to help your guy's cause."

"Alright." Nodding Sam angled his head to look at the bandages and wrappings and stitches on Lucas. "What were you hunting?"

"Several ghosts, a couple of demons, and a skinwalker." Lucas made a face, still lying down on his back, unable to sit up without being in pain.

Dean shuddered. "Why would you willingly take on that many friggen' hunts all at once?"

"I didn't, actually." Lucas smiled as Ben found the bed controls and helped him sit up. "They were working together."

Neither of the Winchesters spoke for a minute, both of them looking like they were going to be sick.

"They were working together?" 

It was Sam who spoke, and he sounded afraid.

"Yeah. They were working together, and when I finally got a hold on which ghost was doing what, one of the demons would pop up and make things difficult for me. When the demons were in danger, the Skinwalkers would pop up. When I tried to fight him, the ghosts came after me again, with different attacks." he rubbed at his bandages, smirking a little when Ben batted his hand away. "They kept changing around and messing up their tactics so I couldn't actually do much."

Ben grimaced, fussing with the edge of the blanket. "How'd you get away?"

"I managed to seal the demons in with a circle, I salt lined the hell out of the ghosts, and I kind of just...Ran from the Skinwalkers."

Now Dean looked angry, and it didn't have anything to do with the current situation. "You're a hunter too?"

Ben shrugged, looking at him. "Yeah. Have been for a while."

"Son of a bitch..." Dean ran a hand down his face, groaning. "You weren't supposed to remember anything. Not even what I taught you."

His head snapped to the side, Ben suddenly standing and rubbing at his knuckles. "What am I not supposed to remember?" He was angry, face flushed and eyes narrowed. "And how do I know you?"

"I nearly got you killed." Dean rubbed at his cheek. "And I think I might possibly be your dad."

From the bed, Lucas grabbed Ben's wrist. "Not worth it. You attack him here and now, you get kicked out and I don't get to see you until I'm out."

Ben sat back down, grumbling the whole time.

Looking between the two of them, Sam's eyes widened, then he coughed and pushed his brother back into a chair, switching seats with him so that Dean was further from Ben.

"I've only ever seen a Winchester respond like that to someone once before. Dean and Cas-"

He cut off as Dean slammed an elbow into his side, glaring at him.

"So..." Ben frowned, then met Sam's eyes. "You're possibly my uncle?"

Sam nodded, crossing his legs and resting his ankle on his knee. "Yeah. Seems like it."

"So when you say they were working together..." Dean pointedly avoided looking at Ben, focusing on Lucas.

"I mean they were protecting each other and making damn sure that I couldn't get away or do anything to harm the others." he winced, a hand flying to his side for a second, then being pulled away by Ben, who was only half paying attention. "I was at the graves of the ghosts, trying to at least take care of that portion of it. The demons came running at me before I could even dig up the graves. They knew where I was, at all times." 

"Huh..." Dean ran a hand through his hair, scowling. "At least this time we're talking to another hunter, rather than a random person who doesn't know this stuff exists."

 

XXLucasBurrXBenBraedenXX

 

A few days later, the doctors had decided that Lucas was healed enough to get released from the hospital. They had let him go with a stern warning that he needed to still be careful, and not do anything that might put strain on the wounds. 

They had looked at Ben as well, stern-faced and kind-eyed.

"You aren't going to go back out on that hunt." Ben reminded him when he looked restless enough to disregard the Doctor's orders.

Sighing, Lucas adjusted himself in his chair. "I know."

Lucas had made Ben drive them to his safe house, where he had a bunch of traps set up. If Ben hadn't known any better, he would have said that he had been there before, the ghost of a memory playing out in his head. A house with fraying curtains, stuffed full of books and weapons, with Devils traps and pentagrams everywhere. 

The memories faded almost as quickly as they had come, allowing Ben to sit at Lucas's bedside and focus on something else.

Anything else. Anything besides the fact the he quite desperately wanted to kiss the other man right then, wanted to comb his fingers through his now much shorter hair. Focusing on his hands was safe enough for now, Ben figured, and he pulled a book into his lap. Now, with new numbers punched into his phone, Ben felt strangely grounded, like it had been important to get that information from the Winchester brothers.

Lucas looked over his shoulder and made a noise in the back of his throat. "That's one of the things that attacked me. Didn't even know that Skinwalkers could be dragons until this all happened."

"Is that where the burns on your arm came from?" Ben took a glance at the bandages covering everything up, barely managing to keep his eyes above the waist. "Dragon's fire?"

With a sigh, tapping the corner of the page, Lucas nodded. "Yeah. Shit hurts more than anything else. Regular fire is kind of like...Luke warm water compared to it."

Ben didn't reply, and Lucas shrugged. "Burns almost always get worse before they get better. The skin has to completely come off before it can start healing in any effective way. I'll be fine in a while, just have to be miserable for a bit."

"You sure?" 

Ben raised his eyes to meet Lucas's gaze, smiling in an off kilter way. Lucas shrugged again before wandering over to the fridge and awkwardly puttering around the kitchen. 

"I may not be sure, but I can take care of myself." he paused, a bottle in his hand, looking at Ben again. "Though it is nice to have somebody help me move around when I'm injured."

 

XXLucasBurrXBenBraedenXX

 

Kevin sighed, tugging at his hair. Several years had passed, and now he was finally able to catch up on school. A look at the clock made him sigh and put his pencil down, stretching his back. 

It was past midnight, he was trying to continue college while being a hunter. This wasn't looking good for the next day's classes.

"You know," a voice startled him, "You really shouldn't be up this late."

Before his mind could really register anything, he had a bottle of holy water in his hands, backed against the wall, looking at a demon that he hadn't seen in years.

Crowley sighed, rolling his eyes. "Moron. If I wanted you hurt, you would already be dead. Ever wonder why I never killed you?"

"You really shouldn't be here, Crowley." Kevin edged a hand into his waistband, fingers touching the handle of his knife. "Why are you?"

"I need your help, actually."

Kevin laughed, the sound almost harsh in the quiet of the room. He nodded, then rubbed at his hair, a disbelieving and panicked smile on his face. "You need my help. You need my help. Right, right." he laughed, sounding like a mad man. "You need my help with what?"

"I'll tell you when we get there." Crowley grabbed his wrist and the room melted away.

 

When they landed, Kevin startled back from the demon who had been holding him. 

"Prophet, I understand that you are afraid of me. Keep this up, I will get angry." Crowley strode forward and grabbed his collar, dragging him along. "We don't have time for your fears and insecurities."

Looking around, Kevin calmed down a bit. "Hey, this is where I stored the..."

"The tablets?" Crowley rolled his eyes again, sighing like he was being emptied of air. "I know. I brought you here to grab the bloody things!"

"Why?"

"You'll need them."

Crowley pressed a hand against his shoulder, urging him forward. When that didn't work, he put both hands on his back and pushed, sending him stumbling into the wall of lockers. With a shake of his head, Crowley gestured for him to go on, fingers moving in a vague circle. 

With a deep breath, Kevin nodded, leaning forward carefully and twisting the lock, then shrugged and looked at Crowley with a frown on his face. "Why will I need them?"

"Because I need you to have them."

Slamming the locker closed before Crowley could get a look at all of the sigils carved into the metal, Kevin held the bag close to his chest. He let out a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through his hair, tightening his fingers around the handles of the bag when Crowley moved closer. 

"Oh don't flatter yourself." Crowley smirked. "We're just going somewhere."

Without giving him a chance to answer, Crowley grabbed Kevin's shoulder and the room dissolved. 

 

When they landed, there was a flash of movement towards them and Kevin suddenly found himself on the ground. A large crash made him focus on the demon who had been carting him around.

Crowley had his hands busy, trying to keep a very sharp metal object from puncturing his chest.

The man on the other end of the blade had black eyes, but the blade was an archangel blade. The tip of it was coated in something, the metal underneath it erroding from contact with the thick liquid.

"All Hail the King." the demon sneered, then looked at Kevin. "I finish with him, you're next, little prophet. I wonder how you'll taste."

Kevin shuddered, pulling the tablet out of the bag and scanning it quickly, keeping an eye on the struggle between the two demons in front of him. Crowley looked like he was winning for the moment, but it also looked like he wasn't going to last too much longer. His grip was slipping, and the liquid was on his hands. For some reason, he wasn't just snapping his fingers and escaping.

Finally, something on the tablet caught his eye. 

It was a simple chant, no ingredients required, he could perform it and banish an attacking demon. 

"Please tell me there's something bloody good on that thing!" Crowley shouted, just before he was flung to the side. "Not exactly having an easy time here!"

Instead of responding, Kevin started chanting, the tablet held at an awkward angle in his lap as he concentrated on it and nothing else. When he finished, there were two screams in the room. One of them was the demon that had attacked them, screaming and clawing at the floor as he was banished.

The other was Crowley, because the demon had succeeded in finally stabbing him in the chest.

"I..." Crowley coughed up a black slime, covering his hand and burning the skin. "Kevin. We need to go see the Winchesters."

"Why the hell did we come here then?" Kevin meant for it to come out as a shout, but it ended up being a squeaky sort of whimper. 

Crowley pulled himself up, clinging to the wall and dragging himself along. "Needed something." he choked out, feeling the poison burning through him with every word. "This, for exam...ple."

He held up a small book and handed it to Kevin, then raised a shaky hand, snapping his fingers.

 

XXLucasBurrXBenBraedenXX

 

When they turned around, they saw Crowley. 

He was pale, like all the blood had been drained from his body, and his hair was flat against his skull. His suit was wrinkled and his hands were all scratched up. 

"You shouldn't have problems with the demons anymore." he muttered, rubbing at his chest. The collar of his normally pristine shirt was ripped open, a hole in the skin over his vessel's heart. He was bleeding heavily, and his words were coming out in sharp gasps. "Get rid of them. Found the prophet. Found the word."

Lucas's grip tightened on his gun, Ben's hand on his arm to keep it pointed at the ground.

Kevin stood behind them, clutching a stone tablet tightly. His eyes shifted between the Winchester brothers, Crowley, and the younger two hunters. He had a look on his face that suggested he was debating making a break for the door.

"Make all this...End." Crowley shook his head, waved vaguely at the table that was covered in various packages. "Supplies." he waved at Kevin. "Prophet." he rubbed between his eyes, like he was trying to ward off a headache. "Close the doors."

Dean made a noise, then took a step backwards when Crowley looked at him. "Why are you helping us?"

"Because he was mine." 

Crowley was whispering now, like it was taking too much energy to talk and he couldn't do it anymore.

"Who was yours?" Sam let his gun drop, pointing it at the floor. 

Giving him a look, Crowley inhaled sharply. "Who isn-n't here, Moose...One of...Yours."

"Damn it Crowley, we have exactly no time for your bullshit today, wha-" Dean started to yell at the Demon, but then Sam put a hand on his arm. Giving his little brother a confused look, Dean shrugged him off, then growled under his breath when Sam took his gun away.

"Dean,"

"Sam, he's no-"

"Dean, he's talking about Bobby."

Now Dean looked shocked. His eyes were wide and his jaw was slack, his words having deserted him. Ben looked between Dean and Crowley, an eyebrow raised. 

"Who is Bobby?" he asked quietly. Crowley looked at him, looked at Dean, then back again. 

"He was basically our dad after our dad died." Dean muttered, scowling at Crowley and shaking his head. "He got killed a long while back now, by a Leviathan. Crowley here went a little crazy after that."

Kevin cleared his throat. "Alright, so what am I doing here?"

"Closing the..." Crowley coughed, splattering blood on his hand. "Bloody gates...of Hell."

"Could have sworn that you didn't want that." the Prophet muttered, looking down at the tablet in his hands. "As in, to the point that you didn't want anyone to own this tablet. You hurt my mom to get your hands on it." he glared at the Demon. "You killed an   
Angel to get your hands on it. You killed Samandriel for it. You killed my girlfriend."

Crowley curled in on himself, hands instinctively reaching for the hole in his chest. Shaking his head, he made motions to the tablet, then to the table. "Everything...Might possibly...Need..."

He let himself fall against the wall, sliding down to the floor. With a shuddering cough, he held still, breathing quickly in sharp pained gasps.

A loud crash was heard outside the room, causing both of the Winchesters to whip around to look at the door, Sam handing Dean back his gun.

"Kevin." Sam urged, hands tightening around the grip of his own gun, Dean bracing his stance next to him. "Kevin, now might be a good time to-"

"Damn it Kevin, get your ass started on this thing." 

Ben grabbed his machete and allowed Lucas to train his gun on the door, both of them standing shoulder to shoulder and in front of Crowley, where he sat on the floor. When he had collapsed, they had moved to stand in front of him.

Dean, looking around at them, frowned "Machete ain't going to do much against Demons, Ben."

Shrugging, Ben grinned. "Still makes them regret coming anywhere near me."

At the table, Kevin was muttering things, grabbing quickly for what he needed out of the piles of objects, containers, and packages.

"Man, I wish we had Castiel right now." Dean said quietly, voice full of regret.

Sam swallowed nervously. "Or Gabriel. Gabe might be a good thing right about now, he'd trick them into thinking this wasn't were we were."

"Or maybe even friggen' Balthazar or someone." 

Dean sounded choked up, and Sam wasn't doing much better.

Lucas lowered a hand, reaching for Ben's. He wrapped his fingers through and clutched tightly, squeezing once. He let himself look at the other man and shrugged, licking his bottom lip.

"Is this alright?" he whispered, still holding on.

Ben nodded, then looked down at their hands. With a brief smile, he pulled the back of Lucas's hand to his mouth, kissing it. "It's fine, Lucas."

"Been wanting to do this since we met." Lucas admitted. "At the hospital, back when...Y'know?"

Grinning now, let his forehead rest against Lucas's shoulder. "I get it now." he pulled back, still holding onto his hand. 

Turning to Dean he sighed. "Ready for this, Old Man?"

"Ready isn't quite the word." Dean muttered "But I think I can do this if you can, Kid."

In the background, Kevin was muttering as he mixed things together. 

When the door burst open, and the hunters found themselves almost overwhelmed. They had demons surrounding them and skinwalkers dodging in between. 

Crowley murmured something, and a second later, Dean felt a hand on his shoulder, pulling him out of the path of something with claws. With a glance spared for the empty space behind him, Dean took out a skinwalker aiming for Crowley's throat.

Sam felt a hand on his ribs, a finger prodding his side and getting him to stand back a step as a metal pole came falling through the ceiling, the ghost that was propelling it howling in anger as it missed him. He looked over at Dean, eyes wide, before turning and blasting the head off of a shapeshifter. Sam had time, however, to notice one thing about his brother.

His left shoulder was pulsing light, softly shining in the half-lit room.

Crowley cried out, snarling as a demon tore at him, scrabbling for his throat. Ben kicked out, barely able to keep Crowley safe and keep himself alive for a moment, before Lucas caught his hand and swung a fist into the other demon's face.

Out of nowhere, the tip of a knife forced a path through the flesh of the possessed man's throat, the faint crackle of energy surging through the skin. The body fell, and Dean stood there. For a moment, it looked like large wings were flared out behind his back, framing him and his narrowed green eyes.

All of a sudden, he didn't look fourty-two. He looked like his face had been wiped clean of all of the years he had seen since he had been alone to face them. He looked like he had the last time that Castiel had been around.

He looked like the young hunter who had set out to pull his brother back to him, who had lifted his chin and said 'Yes sir.' to his father.

There was a second between the older man that he had become and the younger man he had been.

With a snarl, Dean turned and slashed out at another demon, the wings that had flickered in and out of sight behind him flaring and tensing. When one of the creatures went after Sam, he put a bullet in it's head without even looking at it. 

A glance at the younger Winchester confirmed it for him as well.

The wings that were circling Sam protectively were larger, and there were more of them. Six, to be exact, and although they seemed to be attached to him, they also seemed to be trying to form a barrier around him.

With a blood spraying cough, Crowley smirked and pressed a hand to the gaping wound on his chest. "You have wings on your...souls, Winchesters. They belong...to the bloody Angels...who claimed you...oh so long ago."

A few seconds later, the room fell silent except for Kevin's quiet chanting, Crowley's breathing coming in painful stuttering gasps.

Sam kneeled next to him. "You aren't going to survive this, are you?"

"Knew that...Already." Crowley wheezed, fingers grasping the edge of his jacket, almost crushing the shiny black button that had been dulled by splattered blood. "Prophet...Finishes. I...Die."

With a mournful look, Sam turned to Dean.

Dean, however, was glaring at the demon in front of him. "What did you do to Bobby?"

Crowley met his eyes, shaking harder as his vessel lost more blood. "I didn't...Do anything...Winchester. Couldn't save...His bloody...Stubborn...Life. Crotchety bastard...Let go before...I could."

"You helped us because he was yours. You said that. What did you mean?" Sam tilted his head, ignoring the quiet snarl from   
Dean. "From what I know, demons aren't supposed to be able to love anyone."

"I...Loved...Him." Crowley's breathing quieted as his head fell to the side and his eyes closed a little. 

Kevin finished before Sam could ask anything else.

 

XXLucasBurrXBenBraedenXX

 

They buried the man that Crowley had been possessing, late at night, a few days later.

Crowley had died, still in the body, and smiling. 

Dean looked out the window at the grave site, keeping an eye on Ben and Lucas as well. They were walking around the property, hands tangled together. It was the only point of contact between them, but it was somehow more intimate than if they had been locked together by their lips. Dean sighed and turned away, rubbing at his eyes and rolling his shoulders.

"Dean." 

He shook his head, holding up his hands, eyes closed tightly. "Don't even, Sammy."

"All I'm saying is that Ben is an adult now." Sam gave him a small, half hearted smile. "He can make his own choices."

"I know." Dean held his breath for a moment, letting it out slowly and opening his eyes to look at the grave again. They had put the head of Crowley's vessel at the base of a tree, letting it sit as a marker for a man they had never known. 

A man who had been possessed by a demon who had been in love with a dead man.

Sam pulled out a chair next to Dean and sat down, rubbing at his wrist. "They're going to survive. You taught Ben. He's still here. Lucas seems to be able to take care of himself, and in any case, he works with Ben."

With another sigh, Dean rested his head against the table. "I'm fourty-two, Sammy. I..." he swallowed, voice sounding rough.   
"I've..."

"You feel like you're old now." Shrugging, Sam looked at him. "I'm feeling it too, Dean. We're older than a lot of hunters ever get to be."

"I just want him to..." Dean grumbled, fists clenched on the table next to his head. His voice was slightly muffled. "I want him to survive."

Sam glanced out the window, catching sight of Ben and Lucas curled up with each other against a tree. Their foreheads were   
pressed together, and Lucas was saying something that he couldn't hear. 

"I think he will."

 

XXLucasBarrXBenBraedenXX

**Author's Note:**

> I might write more in this story line, I might not.
> 
> Don't know yet.


End file.
